


After the Storm

by thesometimeswarrior



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series Pre-Movie, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23824237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: When Bismuth re-forms, Lapis is several meters away, sitting hunched over her knees.(Or: Bismuth's form is changed. Lapis doesn't want to talk about it.)
Relationships: Bismuth & Lapis Lazuli (Steven Universe)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 81





	After the Storm

When Bismuth re-forms, Lapis is several meters away, sitting hunched over her knees at the edge of the hole in the ground that Peridot had once affectionately called a smaller-than-average lake. At this moment, though, it’s only a hole: The water it had contained is everywhere _but_ inside, creating a plethora of mud out of the surrounding ground, some of which sticks caked on Bismuth’s Gem. 

It’s not surprising. Her Gemstone _had_ sat on the ground for what must have been a while after she was discorporated, because the sky’s a different color now, and that mud is good and soaked in. She’d spent most of her existence in a forge, has lived through a war and worse, and so it’s nothing she can’t handle. 

The reason she’d been discorporated, though, the conversation she needs to have with Lapis in its aftermath…that might be a little more challenging. 

Still, she’s a solider, or was once—understands intuitively that there’s nothing to be done but face it. She paces over to Lapis. The silence holds, and it’s awkward. Bismuth has never liked quiet, has never understood it. Even alone, she much prefers the roar of the forge or the battlefield, and with someone else silence is nearly unbearable. After a moment, she does what she can to break it. “I gotta say—I was overdue for a form change.” 

If this is a joke—and Bismuth is not sure that it is—Lapis doesn’t laugh. “Are you…alright?”

“Pshh, _this_? I’ve been through worse, I—”

“ _Don’t_! Don’t do that—try to _downplay_ what I did! I could have _shattered_ you!”

Bismuth sighs, then sits. “Alright, fine. You could’ve. But you didn’t. And…” A hesitation. “I mean…I wouldn’t have—I don’t _blame_ you.”

“I just…I thought I was _done_ with all of this! The _rage_!” Lapis throws her hands up in the air. “You know, the first time I met Steven—when he took me out of the mirror, I almost…I stole the _ocean_ , I broke Greg’s leg, and I could have…to Steven, and _all_ the humans…And, then when I trapped Jasper as Malachite…I _wanted_ to hurt her, because I _had_ been hurt. I _hated_ how that felt! But I thought I was done with that! But then you brought up that battle, and I…I realized it was _you_ who had…and I…it…it all just came right _back_.”

“I get it.” Bismuth leans back, directs her gaze up toward the sky. “I don’t know if we’re ever… _done_ with it, ya know? That rage?”

Lapis turns to her, furrows her eyebrows.

“What happened to me wasn’t the same as what happened to you,” Bismuth continues. “But lemme tell ya, if I ran into Rose now, I’d…” She clenches her fist, then unclenches it. Looks out in the distance, sighs. “I don’t know _what_ I’d do. But it wouldn’t be pretty. As it is, the first time I met Steven…I couldn’t quite believe he wasn’t her, and I tried to…” She shakes her head. “Point is, I don’t think that rage goes away. It’s a part of us, just like all that terrible stuff is. But it’s not _all_ we are. Sometimes it takes a lot of time, and a lot of strength, but we can _grow_ to be more. I mean, we _have_ to be able to, right?” She pauses, briefly, and then smiles, laughs gently before she continues. “What am I saying—of course you already know that!”

“What?”

“You’ve already _done_ it! I mean, what you and Peri built together—”

“But then I _destroyed_ it!”

“Nah, you didn’t. You uprooted a barn, big deal. From the way Peridot talks, it was always more than that—you built a _life_ together, a life on _Earth_. And you found meaning and _joy_ in it. Plus, you came back, and when you did, that was all still here! And now all of us—me, and all the un-Corrupted Gems, and once we get that Little Homeworld project off the ground, all the Gems that come here—get to have some of that too. Because _you_ grew to be more than that rage and pain. I just hope _I’m_ able to get there someday.”

“But just _now_ , I…You…How can you still say that after what I just _did_ to you?”

Bismuth shrugs. “Sometimes stuff is messy. This sort of stuff especially. That type of pain doesn’t just go away, even if you have grown…Makes sense that every once in a while, it’s gonna show its head.” She looks down “And it really makes sense that it would do it after you found out what I did to you.” A pause. “For what it’s worth—and I know it’s probably not worth much—I really am _sorry_.”

“You didn’t put me in the mirror.” Lapis whispers, hugging her knees. It sounds, Bismuth thinks, like an admission wrenched out of her. And it makes sense—everything's simpler when there's someone concrete to blame.

“No. But you probably wouldn’t have ended up there without me.”

“Maybe. But that battle was brutal. Someone else might have discorporated me if you hadn’t.”

“We fought hard,” Bismith admits. “We _had_ to. Or…we thought we did anyway. Back when we thought we were fighting Pink Diamond.”

“She hurt you.”

“Pink Diamond?”

“Pink Diamond. Rose Quartz.”

“Yeah. She did. When she put me in that bubble. But before that too, by tricking us all into fighting this brutal War that ended up being against _herself_ , and even more for making us _believe_ in it. I _still_ believe in it. But… _you_ shouldn’t have been caught up in all that. I shouldn’t have pulled you into it. It was obvious you weren’t a solider…I guess I just didn’t really believe in civilians.”

Lapis sighs, closes her eyes. Bismuth wonders if she’s letting something slip away—some instinct or impulse or pain that must be building up again inside her Gem—or if she’s desperately holding it back. It’s a distinction that wouldn’t have meant anything to Bismuth once, but it does now—this difference between restraint and release. In any case, when Lapis does eventually answer, her voice is quiet, muted. But the word is there nonetheless: “Thanks.”

It emboldens Bismuth. It’s a risk, she knows, but she was a rebel soldier—she understands risk. And, in the cost-benefit analysis of peacetime, this seems like a worthy one: “I just hope… _someday_ …you and I can be friends.”

Another silence, too big, too present. Bismuth wonders if she miscalculated. It wouldn’t be the first time. But then Lapis says, tentatively, “I think…I’d like that too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Bismuth smiles, and, when the next silence comes, it isn’t so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


End file.
